A planet’s magnetic field usually protects its atmosphere from being blown away by its star. But new research suggests Mars’s weak magnetic field may have helped its atmosphere escape.
planetary atmospheres
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New Type of Storm Spotted on Saturn
In 2018, four massive storms formed near the planet’s north pole, interacting with each other and affecting a full latitudinal band.
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Water Found in Small, Habitable Zone Planet’s Atmosphere
K2-18b is warm, has an atmosphere, and has water vapor. But it’s no Earth 2.0.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Mars Lost Steam
Solar winds are not the main culprit in stripping the planet’s atmosphere, a new study suggests.
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Rover and Lasers Unlock Clues to Early Martian Atmosphere
Sediments from the Curiosity rover and experiments using tanks of gas and laser beams helped reveal how water continued to flow on Mars after the planet lost its atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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Jupiter’s Stressed Out Magnetosphere Causes Aurora and Heating
Force imbalance between Jupiter’s ionosphere and magnetosphere leads to wave generation to release this stress, but the waves also accelerate particles, causing aurora and heating.
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Could Life Be Floating in Venus’s Clouds?
If present, microbes could explain evolving patterns in the planet’s atmosphere when observed in ultraviolet light.
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The Oxygen Neutral Cloud Surrounding Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon
Japan’s Hisaki satellite takes measurements of faint oxygen emissions from Io.
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Solar Flare Caused Increased Oxygen Loss from Mars’s Atmosphere
Measurements by a Mars-orbiting spacecraft indicated heating and chemistry changes in the planet’s atmosphere following an extreme solar eruption last year.
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New Juno Data Reveal Four Key Secrets of Jupiter
Deep clouds, polar storms, lopsided gravity, and a uniformly rotating interior demonstrate that the gas giant plays by different rules than Earth.